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ROME // In a short written reflection, renowned Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini presented “four wishes for the near future of the Church,” highlighting the need to return to doctrinal certainty and unity in the Church.
Now 94 years of age, Cardinal Ruini is one of the most influential Italian churchmen of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Pope Saint John Paul II elevated Cardinal Ruini to the cardinalship, made him president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, and appointed him as Vicar General of Rome – the Pope’s own diocese. The cardinal became a key spokesperson and defender of the pontificate in Italian public life.
Cardinal Ruini’s “invocation,” which reads as a wish list of the desired profile of the next pope, was shared this Sunday by Sandro Magister, a leading Vatican analyst, on his blog “Settimo Cielo.”
The cardinal’s four wishes, published in full by Magister, are:
- “A good and charitable Church.”
- “The certainty of truth and the security of doctrine.”
- A style of governance that “must be as far as possible in keeping with [the] law [of the Church].”
- A process that will reverse “some threats – which I do not want to exaggerate – to the unity and communion of the Church.”
Still in good health, the elderly Cardinal Ruini will be attending the general congregations that precede the conclave. The conclave itself can only be attended by cardinals younger than 80.